Amendment status not verified — confirm the current text below against the official source.
Possession - Mens rea essential. - The word possession and control means something more than mere constructive or legal possession and control Possession and control required to constitute offences must mean conscious possession and actual control. As the possession of incriminating article constitutes serious criminal offences there must be mens rea or guilty knowledge before a person can be convicted of such possession. Consequently where incriminating articles are recovered from a place in the occupation or possession of more persons than one and it is not possible to fix that liability on any particular individual, a Court is not bound to hold that the said articles are in possession or control of the head of the family. The full bench judgment of the Lahore High Court is under the Indian Arms Act, as well a, under the Explosive Substance Act, but the principle laid down in the full bench in applicable also to cases under the Punjab Excise Act. This full bench judgment has over ruled 1930 Lahore 884 which was a case under the Punjab Excise Act laying down that where illicit liquor is found in a room occupied by the son for sleeping the legal possession remains with the father as house master and the son does not become guilty merely by sleeping there. In order to sustain a conviction under Section 19(f) of the Arms Act on the ground that the accused was in possession of unlicensed arms or ammunition, must be shown that his possession was a conscious possession accompanied by the necessary mens rea or intention to possess them and with intent to protect them against others. There must be means rea ane 'animus' accompanying possession. Under Section 19(f) Arms, Act, possession or control of any arms without license is an of- fence. Possession as a test or an element of a crime must be of such character as can relate to the fundamental principle of mens rea in criminal jurisprudence. The animus must be there and the mens rea must be there unless these notions are specially excluded by any statute under consideration. They are basic tests which must be satisfied before a person can be said to have committed a crime whose basis is possession. It is this element of intention or consciousness or knowledge which must be established and must be present as a fact before possession under the Arms Act can be said to constitute an offence. It does not matter whether such possession is actual or constructive or physical or mediate or immediate or direct, indirect or exclusive or joint or concurrent. Corpus without the animus is ineffective. It cannot be said that the wife's possession is the husband's possession unless such possession also satisfies the above test of criminal jurisprudence relating to the theory of possession. Where the place in which an article is found is one to which several P5rsons have equal right of access it cannot be said to be in the possession of anyone of them.